


The Props assist the House

by carloabay



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint Barton Jumps Off Buildings, Clint Barton definitely isnt stupid but he is pretty dumb, Clint Barton's Farm, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sex, POV Clint Barton, Pre-Canon, Spooning, serious mashing of comics and MCU, that tag's hilarious and now i've decided to make it a major plot point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28433196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carloabay/pseuds/carloabay
Summary: Clint built Laura a house because he was ridiculously, sickeningly, ass over elbow in love.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Kate Bishop, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Laura Barton, Laura Barton & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	The Props assist the House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Just_a_fan37](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_a_fan37/gifts).



> Emily Dickinson reference because WHY NOT?
> 
> I decided on the Americanised summary because it's about Clint so I guess I can shit on my UK vocab for Hawkeye JUST THIS ONCE. 
> 
> Anyway...Just_a_fan37 requested Clint/Laura with this beautiful headcanon:
> 
> _My headcanon is that Laura lives in a ranch, she loves horses and she's a painter. Oddly, I like to think she's the one who freaked out a little bit when the relationship got more serious. So, my idea is that Clint got plans to build a house for them and she low-key freaked out. He would also build the house, not just pay for it. I really think that Fury and Maria were very close to the couple._
> 
> Thanks, and here you go!
> 
> ( _I had a bit of fun with this, hope that's okay :)_ )

"She paints," Clint said, dazedly. Natasha slapped a cool cloth over his head and patted him on the shoulder.

"Alright, big boy."

"She does," Clint protested, struggling up to slump against the headboard.

"Uh-huh."

"She paints, and she loves horses, she paints them all the time-"

"Lie down before you fall off the bed," Natasha replied, holding back a smile. Clint squinted at her through a feverish glaze.

"I know you're gonna laugh at me."

"I'm already laughing at you, Barton."

"She _paints_ ," Clint rasped, and then he fell back on the pillows and passed out.

∆

Clint swatted Natasha's arm, and the _smack_ rang off the side of the vent like a ball. They were squished in like two grumpy sardines, so the hit didn't do much.

"You were delirious," Natasha insisted, grabbing his wrist. "I had to get Coulson in to talk sense to you." Clint groaned. "Maybe don't intentionally go down with a fever next time."

"It wasn't intentional!"

"Yeah, nothing ever is with you. What time is it?" 

Clint hit her again.

"Stop hitting me."

"What was I talking about?"

"Some crap about Laura. She paints," Natasha said distantly, peering through the slats of the vent. Clint's eyes widened.

"She does paint!"

"Bozhe moi," Natasha growled. Clint grabbed her shoulder and shook her.

"I forgot all about that! She showed me her paintings, they're amazing, she did one of the wild horse herd that migrated past their land-"

" _Shut up_ ," Natasha snapped, and Clint fell into sullen silence.

∆

"Do something for her. Take her out on a date. Girls love dates, right, Romanoff?"

"Like you would know what girls want," Natasha fired back, lazily waving one foot in the air. Maria glared in her general direction from behind the case file, and Clint scraped mud off his shoe, scattering it all over the cheap carpet.

" _Extraction en route. ETA four minutes,_ " barked control centre down the comms. Clint groaned.

"What do I _do_?"

∆

He took her out. For a date. Dressed smart, real smart, a fancy diner. Fancy as he could afford, anyhow.

Laura grinned like he'd offered her the moon on a silver platter when Clint kicked her chair out for her to sit down.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey, yourself. Nice place."

They ordered, burgers and fries because fuck it, and Clint kept his eyes on her the whole meal: how could he not?

She had that country twang accent that he couldn't get enough of, that sideways grin, pretty shoulders, pretty eyes.

They were halfway through their meal.

 _Wham_. Laura jumped, almost falling out of her chair, and Clint looked up mildly at the noise, a fry halfway to his mouth.

Up against the clean glass, face squished horribly into some kind of caricature, a man in a black tracksuit glared at them. Clint blinked. Laura hyperventilated from across the table.

Natasha Romanoff poked her head around the guy's shoulder. She saw Clint, and her face cleared.

"Hey, Barton." The sound was thickly muffled, but Clint got the gist.

Laura made a strangled sound, looking from Nat to Clint and back again.

"Clint?" Laura asked, thin voice.

"Uh," he managed. "Um..." He gesticulated sharply at Nat for a second, but she ignored him, and grinned at Laura instead.

"You must be Laura!" she yelled through the glass.

"Nat!" Clint hissed.

"That's me!" Laura called. "You're a friend of Clint's?"

"We work together!"

"Nat!" Clint groaned.

"Have a nice night!" Nat hollered, and she winked at Laura and dragged the guy away down the sidewalk, leaving a slobbery, bloodied imprint where his jaw had hit the glass. Laura turned back to the table, collecting herself. Clint winced.

"She seems nice," Laura said, delicately. Clint goggled at her. "Oh, come on," she said, upon seeing his face, and she rolled her eyes. "You live in downtown Manhattan, Clint Barton. Y'don't think I would've guessed you tangle with some bad folks now'n again?"

"Uh," Clint put out, words failing. Laura sipped on her milkshake (she'd gotten a milkshake, and Clint had almost had a heart attack) and winked at him.

"Uh," Laura mocked. "God, you're stupid." Clint flushed, half embarrassed, half inoculated by the sight of Laura, big brown eyed, gleaming at him over the edge of her glass.

"You wanna go someplace there ain't no blood on the windows?" he tried, and Laura rolled her eyes, scraping her chair back across the linoleum floor.

"I thought you'd never ask. You try too hard." Clint grinned.

∆

She left the next morning. Clint didn't care. It was eleven o'clock, the sun was pale through the curtains, and he was riding a high.

Laura pulled her clothes on, flicked her hair out of the collar of her shirt, and Clint watched her from the pillows with a weak smirk on his face.

"Jesus, you're good lookin'," Laura said, hands doing up buttons quick and agile, grinning at him across the room. Clint pumped his muscles with a Captain America pout on his face, and Laura snorted. "Idiot."

"When d'you wanna meet again?" Clint asked, hopefully. Laura shrugged, screwing up her nose.

"You've got my number," she said, hand on the door. "Surprise me."

∆

"Okay, so hypothetically-"

"Just say what you mean, Barton, I have a tac team out in Belarus with no one in control centre," Coulson replied, his strides getting longer, flipping furiously through a thick file. Clint started jogging to keep up.

"So if I had a wife, right, which I don't--" Coulson offered him a long-suffering glance-- "or, you know, a husband, whatever, theoretically, would S.H.I.E.L.D provide accomodation?"

"Did you read the terms of service before you joined?" Coulson asked, as they entered the control room. 

"What are you talking about? Barton can't read," Hill said from the centre console, without looking up from her tablet. Clint flipped her the bird from behind her back, and Coulson slapped Clint's hand down.

"Course I haven't read the damn handbook," Clint grumbled, as Coulson hunted for an earpiece. "Can't you just tell me real quick?"

"Some of us take our jobs seriously, Barton," Hill teased, and Coulson, headphones on, gave Clint only a roll of the eyes.

Clint sighed. No one reacted. Clint sighed, harder, and a technician fixing a console looked up. Hill staunchly ignored him.

Clint turned on his heel, and he was halfway to the door when--

"Barton."

He turned back. Hill was looking at him pityingly and for a second, he wondered why.

"Section 4. Page two hundred or so."

"I feel sorry for the poor sap who had to write it," Clint said, with a grin in lieu of thanks. "See ya, Hill."

"Last mission report was due on Sunday," Hill called, as Clint left the control room.

"Love you, too!" Clint yelled back at her, and the door slid closed automatically on Hill's tightly amused smile.

∆

_S.H.I.E.L.D will provide adequate housing and protection for the families of agents, including but not limited to:_

_\- security detail if the agent has been compromised  
\- housing under the spouse or partner's name with no link to S.H.I.E.L.D, paid for by S.H.I.E.L.D  
\- school fees to an extent and detraction from Academy fees should the child wish to take this path  
\- zero paper or digital trail on all accounts_

Clint stopped reading. There were eighteen more bullet points.

He reached for the landline with blind fingers, and punched in Laura's number by memory.

" _This is Laura_ ," she said, and Clint heard the rustle of paper.

"Hey, Laura."

" _Hi, Clint,_ " she said, and there was a grin in her voice. " _Back for more_?"

"You free on Monday?"

" _Do you even have to ask? Your place or mine_?"

"Oh--" Clint blinked at the phone. He'd meant to ask her on a date. "Mine," he said firmly. But sex would do just fine, too. 

" _I get off at six_ ," Laura replied, and then she hung up. Clint grinned giddily at the phone as the tone hummed in his hand.

∆

It went on like this for a while.

If he'd been a bit less blind, he would have seen the pattern.

Laura was much more elusive than he gave her credit for.

"So when do I get to meet the family?" Clint asked, face half-squished into the pillow. Laura, still breathing heavily, turned her flushed face to his.

"What?" Instantly, he knew they weren't on the same page.

"The family," Clint repeated. "Your parents?"

"Okay," Laura said, slowly, sitting up, tucking hair behind her ear. She eyed him carefully, and Clint's stomach sank. "Clint, I feel like we're definitely not on the same page here."

"Funny, that," Clint replied, narrowing his eyes at her. "What page are you on?"

"Uh, sex? And nothing else? You didn't 'zactly... clarify." She was red faced now, confused and embarrassed, and Clint flushed, too.

"Oh." His cheeks started burning. Okay, he'd been reading the wrong signals. "Shit." 

Laura flung the covers back and slid off the bed, scrabbling on the floor for her clothes, and Clint averted his eyes respectfully from her ass.

"Okay, Laura--"

"I just didn't realise you thought we were building an emotional bond through my vagina," Laura snapped back, and Clint frowned, stung.

"That's not--"

"Look, Clint," Laura said sharply, swinging around, struggling into her bra and doing up her jeans zip at the same time, "you called me over and over again and invited me over here, and that's all you wanted. I don't know why you suddenly wanna meet my parents!"

"I really like you!" Clint protested.

"Oh, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's rainin'!" Laura snapped back.

"I was trying to ask you out on a date, you idiot!" Clint yelled, suddenly, and Laura blinked. Her face grew redder and redder, and she closed her mouth with a snap, mortified.

"Christ," she muttered. "Jesus, I'm such an idiot." She snatched her shirt up and left, slamming the door behind her.

∆

"Why the long face?" Natasha teased, poking him in the ribs. Clint ignored her sullenly, and she peered at him. "Barton?"

"Can you not?" he snapped. Natasha drew back instantly, face closing.

"What's the matter?" she taunted. "Laura get cold feet?" Clint turned a hot glare on her, and Natasha narrowed her eyes right back.

They spent the rest of the mission briefing in childish silence.

"Barton. Barton!" Clint jerked to attention, and Hill squinted at him from the front of the room. "Is something wrong?"

"No," he managed, tucking his fingers into his belt. "No...no."

"Laura left him," Natasha bit out, spitefully, and Hill raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't ask you, Romanoff." She looked between the two of them. "Do you two need a minute?" She sounded pissed. Clint crossed his arms and shook his head.

∆

Laura didn't call.

Clint moped by the phone for hours that evening, untangling his headphone wires, with no success.

Eventually, he tossed the wires aside and resolved to find her himself.

It wasn't easy.

He'd never been to her place. They'd never talked about their jobs, or her family, and their only mutual friend was, somehow, Maria Hill.

Christ, he should have seen this coming.

"Hey, Maria," Clint said, leaning on the edge of Hill's desk. She ignored him. "I need your help." She carried on ignoring him, sorting papers into neat piles. "It's about Laura." Hill's hands stilled.

"What'd you do?"

"We both know what I did," Clint sighed, throwing himself into the chair opposite Hill's. "I need to find her."

"Don't you have her number?" Hill asked dryly. Clint hesitated.

"I was thinking something a bit more meaningful."

"By the look on your face, I think she's probably had enough of meaningful."

"She won't pick up," Clint conceded.

"Barton, you're a secret agent for America's premier covert intelligence service," Hill sighed.

"I don't want to _track her down_ ," Clint groaned. Hill spread her hands in exasperation.

"What do you want me to do, then?"

Clint stared at her.

"You're friends with her, aren't you?" he asked. Hill winced.

" _Friends_ in the loosest sense, I'd say."

"Oh, Hill," Clint groaned, head drooping.

"Look, I can give you her address," Hill said, almost consolingly. "Can't say she'll come to the door, though."

"Ah, Jesus, thank you, Hill," Clint gushed. "I owe you one."

"You owe me at least eighty by now," Hill griped, reaching into her bottom drawer.

∆

Clint leaned on the doorbell, and heard it give a tinny ring throughout the apartment.

Padding footsteps, click-snap of the latch, and the door opened.

Laura stared. Clint managed a weak grin. Laura stared again, flushing red.

"Look, I know I embarrassed you," he started, and he produced the straggly bunch of flowers with a Stark-like flourish. Laura bit back a smile. "And I'm sorry," Clint carried on. "Can we talk this out? I don't mind if...you want something different, but I just wanna talk to you."

"You _mortified_ me," Laura clarified, in her cute hick accent, and she snatched the flowers and studied them with an amused stare.

"Yeah," Clint said, uncomfortably.

"You're an idiot, Clint Barton."

"I could be your idiot."

"Christ," Laura snorted, and she kicked the door open. "Come on. You look like a lost stray."

∆

He took her out, on a real date, where they both knew what the hell was going on.

He took her on two, three, eight, and then she introduced herself as his girlfriend to Kate.

Kate grinned like a shark, and Clint reddened, knowing for goddamn certain she was going to run and tell Natasha the first chance she got.

"Girlfriend, huh?" Kate teased, sticking out her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

"This is Kate, the stray," Clint said, and Kate kicked him, hard. Laura raised her eyebrows.

"I always thought you were the stray, Clint," Laura said, and Kate's smile split her face.

∆

Fury met Laura by accident.

Clint shouldn't have jumped off the roof.

"It was the only exit plan," he groaned, mumbling into the ground. Natasha hushed him sharply and yanked the knot tight around the splint. Clint squeaked. "I thought the cable would hold."

"Jesus," Natasha said disdainfully. "Honestly, how the hell did you think you could pull this off?"

"The trajectory was right," Clint murmured. "Cable was fraying about eight feet up. Didn't notice."

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah."

She paused.

"Trajectory?"

"You don't think I can do math?" Clint wheezed, as a sharp pain shot up his leg.

The ambulance arrived forty minutes later. He blacked out as they were loading him onto a stretcher, and just before he did, he heard the words "Took out four goons with one arrow-" and he slipped into unconsciousness with a grin on his face.

∆

"He jumped off a building."

"Of course he fuckin' did."

"Saved my ass, though."

"What, from the tracksuit mafia?" A chair squeaked against the floor.

"Something like that."

"D'you think he can hear me?" Clint cracked one eyelid open, into a slit.

"Lmmf--" he managed, and stopped when he realised there was a tube down his throat. His chest heaved, contracted, and he spluttered for a second before his lungs reacted and stabilised, and he slumped back into the pillows, drool coating his lips.

"Gross," Laura said, and she leaned over him and wiped his mouth with her sleeve. "Hey, baby."

"Mnn," Clint grumbled. Natasha stuck her head into view, and there were butterfly bandages all over her face. 

"Hi, assfuck." She grinned at him, and Laura choked on air. Clint managed to wrangle his hands free of the blanket, and, just like that kid on the fifth floor had taught him, launched into a tirade of jerky sign-language swearing.

"He conscious?" came a deep voice from the door, and Clint dropped his hands and pretended to fall asleep in an instant.

"Yes," Natasha and Laura said, in unison. There was a pause. Clint glared at them from behind his eyelids.

"You must be Laura," Fury said, in his polite growl. Clint heard them shaking hands.

"Pleasure to meet you," Laura replied. "Are you the boss?"

"Just a concerned citizen," Fury said blandly, and Clint would have snorted if there hadn't been a high chance of him choking to death on a tube. "Romanoff, if you wouldn't mind--?"

"A coffee? Come on, Nick, I do way too much for you already," Natasha teased.

"Natasha."

"Yeah, yeah. Come on, Laura, if you can find me a hot nurse I'll buy you a coffee, too."

Their footsteps faded, and the door swung closed. Clint kept up the charade of being unconscious.

"I know you're awake, Barton."

"Pfff," Clint grunted, opening his eyes. Fury lowered himself into a chair with a creak.

"You did have me fooled for a second." Clint squinted at him. Fury did not flatter. "We thought you were a lost cause." Oh.

"La-rmpfh-" Clint managed.

"She's a lovely woman," Fury said, dryly. Obviously not in the mood for Clint's love life. "You're on leave until you're walking again." Clint whined in protest. "Don't, Barton. Hill wanted you back after two weeks to do all the paperwork for damage insurance on the building you and Romanoff blew up." Fury stood, brushing off his trousers, and turned to the door.

He paused.

"While you're resting," he added, "why don't you look over S.H.I.E.L.D's spouse protection scheme?"

And that's as good a blessing as Clint will ever get.

∆

"I'm going to ask her to marry me," Clint said, six months later, and Natasha choked dramatically on her drink. Clint gave her The Eye, and she stopped.

"Remember the last time you tried to dig your claws in?" she teased, and Clint glared at her.

"Don't be a dick."

"But that's literally my job."

"Nat..."

"New Year's Eve," she interrupted, stirring her drink with her straw, and Clint blinked at her.

"What?"

"Propose on New Year's Eve."

"That's risky," Clint mumbled. Good idea, though. "When did you become a romantic?"

Natasha punched him in the shoulder.

∆

"Three!" Kate screamed, right into his ear, and Clint wrapped his arm around Laura's waist, tugging her close. She grinned up at him. Clint's heart started to beat itself right out of his chest.

"Marry me," he said, and the words got lost, ebbing in the shared space between them. Laura's grin flickered.

"Two!" shrieked Kate.

"I love you," Clint said. There was confetti in her hair, and champagne on her breath.

"Yes," Laura whispered, and he only caught it because he could read her lips.

"One!" 

She kissed him, and the world exploded around them.

∆

They eloped. 

Natasha got mad at him later, _really_ mad, spitting fury, and Coulson was wrangled in to calming Laura's mom down from hysterics for three hours.

Hill took Laura's dad, and they came out of her office chatting like old friends.

Clint and Laura got married in a tiny office in Montana after driving for eight hours, with a stranger who ran a ranch a ways over. 

The stranger, a young woman with hair dyed blue and an adopted haul of twenty-something kids/workers, took them back to the farm, and Laura had a hell of a time bareback horse racing various farmhands through fields, laughing her head off and winning every damn race.

Clint taught a just-immigrated Korean lady, Ara, who'd just finished building the hay barn, how to work a keg, and in return she taught him the basics of construction through eight pints and numerous scribbled-on paper napkins. 

Clint nodded along and took it all in and got an idea.

Ara took him to see the barn, and it really was beautiful, and then they went around to look at the half-finished farmhouse extension.

Clint's idea grew legs and arms.

∆

"I can give you a holiday, Barton, but not much more," Hill admitted, signing her name on a vacation form.

"That's all I need," Clint said. "Thank you, Hill."

" _Commander_ ," Hill replied, with less tart than usual. Clint grinned.

"One more thing," he said, and he pulled the handbook out of his pocket. It was bent in half, the front page creased beyond recognition, and Clint saw pain shoot through Hill's expression for a second. "S.H.I.E.L.D will provide housing under the spouse or partner's name with no link to S.H.I.E.L.D, paid for by S.H.I.E.L.D," he quoted. Hill chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"You want me to write up a housing form?" she asked, averting her eyes from the beaten handbook.

"Yeah," Clint said. "But I've got some customisation to put in, too."

∆

"Christ," Natasha mumbled, staring through the car window at the wide expanse of land. "I didn't know it was _this_ big."

"Hell, yeah," Clint said, killing the engine. The car whined and grumbled and died, softly. "Fury set it up when I joined. Kind of an incentive."

"Bribery," Natasha corrected, and Clint shoved her.

"It's mine, now," he said. "Told him this was where the house was gonna be." Natasha eyed him warily.

"The house? Clint, this is an empty piece of land."

" _Gonna_ be," Clint repeated, and he opened the car door. "Come on. I've got measuring stuff in the trunk."

"Hold on, hold on," Natasha protested, struggling to unlock the ancient seatbelt. "Dammit, Barton--" Clint shut the door, made a face at Natasha through the window, and flung the car trunk open.

Eventually, Natasha tumbled out through the driver's door, having climbed over the gears, and marched around to Clint.

"You're not going to _build_ the house?"

"Damn right," Clint said grimly, hauling his bag from the trunk and marching off. "These sapling are gonna have to go, we can replant them a ways over-"

"Clint, how the hell--" Natasha tripped on a rock and cursed-- "are you gonna build an entire house all on your own?"

"You're going to help me," Clint said, stopping abruptly. Natasha scoffed. 

She scoffed again when Clint said nothing.

"You're serious?" Natasha shrieked suddenly.

"Look, she misses home!" Clint replied. "Bed-stuy's gross. Manhattan in general is gross, and Missouri is the closest I can get without actually moving back in with her parents, 'cause I don't think they'd appreciate that--"

"Clint, I don't know how to build a house! You don't know how to build a house!"

"Ara does."

"Who the hell is Ara?"

"Lady we met when we eloped."

"A random lady--"

"She's not random, she's a friend," Clint grunted, pulling out his tape measure and shovel. Natasha pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Don't background check her," Clint warned. "Seriously, Nat, how do you even get anything from just her name?" He looked up. Natasha was furiously typing away. "Nat, stop!"

"What about Kate?"

"Kate doesn't wanna help me build a house."

"I don't wanna help you build a house!" Natasha protested, glaring at him from over the top of her phone. Clint signed and shook his head.

"You do."

She didn't, but that didn't stop him from wrangling her in on it.

In the end, Clint had taken only a total year of vacation time to build the house.

It was all sweaty workmen in the Missouri heat, numerous coffee spills over timber, early mornings with the sun sat right on the horizon, Kate observing with copious amounts of criticism and sarcasm, and Natasha slowly getting her way in every single argument.

Fury offered him resources and people and an approving eye, and Ara bounded around the house with enthusiasm and unconcealed excitement, no matter the day. They built a shed, a barn, a chicken coop, a garage, and at the end of every day, Clint collapsed onto the ratty seat in the back of the car and conked out almost instantly.

Maria, somehow, managed to convince Laura to take a job out in Marrakech that seemed to mostly consist of beach days, by the pictures she was constantly sending over. Clint started to heavily envy her right about the time that the rains came around in Missouri.

They finished, and when they did, Clint could have cried. The sun was rising in the sky when the porch steps were being finished with polish, and the horizon was chock-full of watery clouds. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but it was _their_ sight.

Natasha’s phone started buzzing, and she dug it from her pocket with sticky fingers, balancing it on her shoulder to answer.

“Hello?” She glanced over at Clint, and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” A frown flickered over her face. “Oh, come on, Maria. Don’t I get a shower first?” There was an angry reply, and Natasha winced. “Yeah, yeah, okay. You’re coming to pick us up, though.” Clint’s stomach sank.

“What was that about?” he asked. Natasha chewed on her lip.

“Mission alert. Pickup via jet. We gotta get everyone out of here.”

“Aw, no,” Clint groaned. “Laura’s coming back tomorrow, she’ll have to live in Bed-stuy again—“

“Boo-hoo,” Natasha snapped. “Come on, you useless sack of love-puppy. God, I hate you as a married guy.”

∆

Clint dragged himself into their crooked-walled apartment with a set of broken ribs, Spider-Man band-aids all over his face, and stitches halfway down his spine.

Laura didn’t hear the door shut at first: she was curled up on the ratty couch, eyelids drooping, half-reading _Of Mice And Men_. Her blanket slipped off one shoulder. Clint shuffled on the doormat.

“Hey, baby,” he croaked. Laura looked up, and her warm-flushed cheeks went from pink to grey faster than a set of traffic lights. 

“Clint? What the hell—“ she leapt from the couch, throwing the book carelessly over her shoulder, and rushed to him, leaving the blanket trailed across the floor.

“I’m okay—“ he managed, and she flung her arms around his neck, knocking the breath out of him in one painful wheeze. “Jesus, woman.”

“Sorry,” Laura managed, stepping back, looking him up and down, and her face twisted in worry. “Clint, now you really gotta tell me what’s going on—“

“Can it wait?” Clint gasped, massaging his ribs. “Please, babe—“

“You get back home at all hours, covered in bruises, remember when we saw Natasha beat up that guy?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Clint said with a wince, but she wasn’t finished.

“And Kate? You really expect me to believe she goes to college, what with all the scratches she gets? Is she in trouble?” Laura clutched her hands to her chest. “Clint, are you in a mob?” Clint snorted, then flinched as pain shot through his torso.

“I’m not in the mob, Laura.”

“And you’re not a prostitute?”

“Christ,” Clint wheezed, holding back a crazed laugh. “Come _on_ , baby.”

“So tell me, please!” Laura protested. “Clint, I really can’t keep livin’ like this.”

“I will tell you,” Clint promised, and Laura’s eyes got big and hopeful. “ _After_ I’ve slept for at least an hour,” he amended.

“Oh, honey, you need to sleep for days,” Laura sighed. She bit her lip. “You promise?” 

“Promise,” Clint said, holding out his little finger. Laura took it, then, with a wicked glint in her eye, wrenched it to the side. Clint howled dramatically, and Laura yanked on his finger and led him to bed.

“I’d make an amazing prostitute,” he mumbled, as she pushed him under the covers.

“Eh,” Laura replied, tipping her hand back and forth.

“Hmmf,” Clint grunted, and he dropped off to sleep almost instantly, but not before he felt Laura slide in behind him and wrap a warm arm loosely around his hip.

∆

Safe to say, Laura was more than a little shocked when Clint told her that he was a special operative of an internationally ranging intelligence agency who fought Nazis with a bow and arrows.

She didn’t seem fazed when he explained that Natasha and Kate and Fury and Maria were in on it, too.

“Maria?” she asked, sounding betrayed. “Really? Wait, no...I’m actually not surprised.”

It did take her three weeks to get over the fact that she’d married a spy. And fair enough. There was a hell of a lot of paperwork involved, and the security measures and bits about death in action were scary enough.

The house, though. The house was a different matter.

“I really don’t trust you enough to be in a car with you with a blindfold on,” Laura griped, knotting her fingers into her seat belt.

“I’m wounded,” Natasha muttered, craning over the wheel. “Clint, why is your seat so low?”

“Why are you so short?” Clint asked, lounging on the back seats. Natasha seized a full can of soda and threw it back at him without looking. It smacked off his shoulder.

“Quit it, you two,” Laura sighed. “ _Honestly_.” Natasha cast her an amused look, then turned onto the driveway and slammed her foot onto the brake. Laura shrieked and Clint was thrown forward, slamming into the gearbox, off the seat and into the footwell. “Hell,” Laura breathed, gripping the side of her seat, and clawing at the blindfold.

“Nuh-uh,” Natasha said, yanking the knot tighter. “Clint, you wanna open the door for your wife?”

“Brmmf,” Clint said, with a mouthful of floor, clawing at the door handle in an attempt to get upright.

They wrangled Laura out of the car and onto the sunny driveway. She got her balance, patting the gravel with the ball of her foot.

“God, it’s hot. Where the hell are we?” she grumbled.

“Do the honours,” Natasha ordered, pulling an apple out of her pocket and biting into it with a _crunch_. Clint scowled at her, then drew his pocketknife and cut the blindfold away from Laura’s eyes.

She blinked for a second, adjusting to the light. She squinted at the house.

“Good luck,” Natasha hissed into Clint’s ear, and then she turned and got back into the car, started up the engine, and rolled away.

“Coward,” Clint muttered under his breath.

“Clint, is that a house?” Laura asked, her voice trembling, dangerously high.

“Sure is,” Clint managed, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking anywhere but at Laura.

“Did you _build_ a _house_?” Laura hissed. Clint cleared his throat.

“Sure did,” he croaked, squinting a few feet to the left of the chimney. Laura punched him, sharp knuckles right into his bicep, and Clint yelped as his arm went numb. “Laura!”

“You built a _house_?”

“You’re upset,” Clint noted cleverly. “Look, it wasn’t expensive. All of it came from S.H.I.E.L.D, all paid for, the land’s mine—“

“I’m not upset, I’m in shock!” Laura gasped. “You _built_ a house!”

“Would’ve thought we’d got past that part by now,” Clint said, and Laura punched him again, hard on his shoulder. “Ow!”

“I can’t believe you built a house!”

“Couple of other people helped, too—“

“I need, like eight weeks to process,” Laura mumbled, sinking to a crouch and burying her face in her hands. Clint squatted down beside her.

“I built it for you,” he said, and Laura glared at him through her fingers. “Come on, babe. I know you hated Manhattan. You got tired of the skyline a hundred times.” Laura glared at the sky through her fingers.

“Are we in Missouri?” she grunted.

“Yeah,” Clint said. “Big plot of land. Chickens and shit.” Laura raised her eyebrows, looking slightly appeased.

“Chickens?”

“And a horse.”

“A horse?!”

“I love you, Laura.” Clint took her hand. “It’s completely off the grid. Safe as houses.”

“Oh, God,” Laura breathed, taking in the fields. She squinted into the distance. “Is that a barn?”

“Uh-huh. Shed, barn, coop, stable. Back porch. Back garden as big as Central Park.” 

“It is beautiful,” Laura said, shyly. “It’s a li’l bit like—“

“Home?” Clint asked, holding back a smile. Laura looked at him sharply.

“Really?” she said, tipping her head. “Are you kidding me, Clint?” The sun bounced off the gold in her eyes. She looked so pretty out here. He’d always known Laura wasn’t a city girl. She was grinning, now. “Christ. I love you, you big soft idiot.”

“I built a house for you, don’t call me an idiot,” Clint joked. “I love you, too—“ she seized him roughly by the collar and kissed him, slid her fingers into his hair, and then she pushed him down onto the gravel and flung herself on top of him, arms around his shoulders, face buried into his neck.

Clint could have sworn she started crying with happiness.

He laughed and kissed her cheek, and then he rolled her over, gripped her around the waist and heaved her off the ground, bridal style. He started walking, and what a picture they would have made, giggling in the late afternoon sun on the long slog up the driveway to their new house.

**Author's Note:**

> ❤️
> 
> (Good CHRIST this took me a while I'm sorry, also i know it’s not exactly what you asked for but I hope you like it???)
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not know how to build a house
> 
> Clint Barton does because he’s clever
> 
> Comment if you liked it!! <3


End file.
